A better judge of a horse or cow there was not in all the country
round. Yorkshire itself might have attempted to jockey her, and
would have failed. Her corn was sound and clean; her potatoes well
preserved to the latest spring. People began to talk of the hoards
of money Susan Dixon must have laid up somewhere; and one young
ne'er-do-weel of a farmer's son undertook to make love to the woman
of forty, who looked fifty-five, if a day. He made up to her by
opening a gate on the road-path home, as she was riding on a bare-
backed horse, her purchase not an hour ago. She was off before him,
refusing his civility; but the remounting was not so easy, and rather
than fail she did not choose to attempt it. She walked, and he
walked alongside, improving his opportunity, which, as he vainly
thought, had been consciously granted to him. As they drew near Yew
Nook, he ventured on some expression of a wish to keep company with
her. His words were vague and clumsily arranged. Susan turned round
and coolly asked him to explain himself, he took courage, as he
thought of her reputed wealth, and expressed his wishes this second
time pretty plainly. To his surprise, the reply she made was in a
series of smart strokes across his shoulders, administered through
the medium of a supple hazel-switch.
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